An address book is a list of phone numbers of contacts. When communication and computer technologies were underdeveloped, people can only record phone numbers of contacts on a notebook by handwriting, which is only capable of containing a limited amount of information, and is inconvenient for information updating. With the development of mobile communication and computer technologies, people can record the phone numbers of contacts on a storage medium of a mobile communication terminal or computer, which greatly facilitates the communication between people; meanwhile, the function and capacity of an address book are also increasingly enhanced with the development of various mobile communication services, for example, functions of providing presence information of contacts, and group and category of contacts. However, when a user has multiple pieces of user equipment (UE), the user needs to input the contact information to each UE, which is rather inconvenient for the user, and the consistency between the contact information on the UEs cannot be guaranteed when the data is updated. Therefore, it is an urgent task to provide a consistent address book for a plurality of UEs of a user, so as to provide better user experience.
Currently, many data services require support of an address book. For example, for Instant Message (IM) and Push to talk over Cellular (PoC) services, when sending an IM message or initiating a PoC call request, a user needs to initiate a request according to a user identity (ID) of a contact in an address book. In the conventional technology, address books for the IM and PoC services are implemented by a Shared List Extensible Markup Language (XML) Document Management Server (XDMS) at the network side, and a user of the IM and PoC services needs to install a relevant XDMS Client on a UE to access and edit the address book of the user. FIG. 1 shows the implementation architecture of an address book in the conventional technology.
Referring to FIG. 1, an XDM Client is adapted to access and edit a contact list provided on a Shared List XDMS; an Aggregation Proxy is adapted to authenticate an access and edition request of a user, and route the request to the Share List XDMS; and the Shared List XDMS is adapted to store and manage the contact list of the user. When the user accesses or edits his/her own contact list, the XDM Client may be used to initiate an access request by using an XML Configuration Access Protocol (XCAP)-related method, the request is authenticated by the Aggregation Proxy and then forwarded to the Shared List XDMS, and the Shared List XDMS completes the service request of the user, and returns a final execution result to the XDM Client of the user.
Moreover, in the conventional technology, a presence information-enabled address book also has similar address book functions. The presence information-enabled address book is a contact list that can conveniently display presence information of a presentity on a terminal. A user may use a UE to initiate a SUBSCRIBE request for subscribing to the presence information of the presentity to a presence information server by using a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) SUBSCRIBE method. After the SUBSCRIBE request is authorized, the presence information server transmits a notification of presence information change of the presentity to the UE through an SIP NOTIFY method. After the UE receives the notification of the presence information change, the presence information is displayed on the presence information-enabled address book of the user.
The conventional technology has at least the following problems:
Both the contact list on the Shared List XDMS and the presence information-enabled address book in the conventional technology have single-purpose functions and closely related to services. Therefore, they cannot serve as an independent function for providing services for a user. In addition, when the user requires that the multiple functions described above need to be supported, various service clients must be installed on a UE. Moreover, when the user has a plurality of UEs, the conventional technology cannot ensure the consistency between the contact information on the UEs, especially the presence information of contacts. Because only the notification of presence information change of the contacts can be transmitted to UEs that have subscribed to the presence information, and UEs that have not subscribed to the presence information cannot receive the notification of the change in the presence information of the contacts.